Assignment 5: Obfuscation

In further exploration of obfuscation as a concept to indicate the fact that people tend to overlook middle-aged women I asked Luigi to take photographs of my face as I progressively moved back from a sheet of frosted glass. I started with my face pressed up against the glass referencing Ana Mendieta and Jenny Saville. The photographs are included at the bottom of this post. They become visually quite exciting as I become more obscured. I then explored various ways to interpret these images in drawing but without trying to literally transcribe what I saw.

A3 Pastel on Bockingford Textured Watercolour Paper

Detail: Aquamarkers on Cartridge Paper

Out of Focus Photograph - Coloured Pencil on
Dark Ingres Paper

Coloured Pencil on Dark Ingres Paper

Coloured Pencil on Ingres Overlaid with Tracing Paper

Oil Pastel on Bockingford Paper.

I thoroughly enjoyed this exploration. The trouble is, that I could continue mark making experiments forever without ever reaching a resolution and I have now  almost completely run out of time so I'm going to have to stick with the (rather self-indulgent) drawing on the previous post as my final assignment and hope for the best. 

*Update*

See previous post - While my work was in the post to my tutor - in the remaining two days before the deadline for the end of my course I decided to work on a larger drawing for this series. Being last minute I didn't have a large enough sheet of dark paper so used a mid toned paper which necessitated more work on the background. This is a bit overworked and therefore less mysterious (and less disturbing) compared to the original sketches but the sketches are too small to meet the criteria for assignment 5. Nevertheless - I think that this drawing is more 'me'. Not in the sense that it's a better likeness but in the fact that it was drawn more instinctively without so much thinking. It also show my love of colour - so in the end I've decided to submit this as assignment five for the formal assessment in November, This is a calculated risk as my Tutor has not seen this, but overall I feel happier with this than the multilayered monochrome drawing I had originally designated as assignment 5.